– Director/writer/producer: Bruce Sweeney

– Diary by: Steven Westren

Summer 1992: Award-winning short filmmaker, cabin framer and sometimes boom man Bruce Sweeney decides it’s time to try to make his first feature. Not wanting to deal with the funding route just yet, Sweeney heads up to a remote cabin on b.c.’s Sunshine Coast to write. He takes the occasional framing job to survive, but mostly lives off the Chinook he catches and a steady supply of beer.

March 1993: The script for Live Bait is completed. It’s a semi-autobiographical tale of a troubled twentysomething guy who falls in love with a sculptor in her sixties and is based on Sweeney’s experiences in university.

He makes a half-hearted attempt to get money from the agencies, ‘but I knew it was a pipe dream.’ Instead, he hits up his father for a $10,000 loan. ‘He’d helped my brother buy a house, so I told him, ‘Well, this is my house.’ ‘

With the money, Sweeney buys black-and-white 16mm film stock and, using his industry contacts, starts to assemble a cast and crew who will work for 100% deferrals. Most of the gear is arranged through his dop, David Pelletier, who has the backing of the ppi production house. The National Film Board agrees to a Program to Assist Filmmakers in the Private Sector grant.

Sweeney also has the expert advice of friend John Pozer, whose film The Grocer’s Wife he had worked on, to see him through every stage of the film.

May 1993: Sweeney and his cast, Tom Scholte, Micki Maunsell, Babz Chula, Kevin McNulty and Jay Brazeau, go through extensive rehearsals, reworking the script. They can afford the long preparation because, ‘when you don’t have money, you have time.’

June 1993: Sweeney and his small cast and crew shoot for two weeks at his remote cabin location. ‘It was my own personal Waterworldactors couldn’t swim, the guy playing the macho character turned out to have a major phobia about bugs, another actor wouldn’t do a nude scene unless he could wear a life jacket.’

And nearby, for the first time anyone in the area can recall, a cabin is being constructed out of materials being carted in daily by, of all things, a helicopter.

August 1993: After a month’s hiatus due to scheduling conflicts, Sweeney shoots for another 20 days in Vancouver, with another $10,000 loan from his father. Despite the cash infusion, there are the usual complaints about the ‘lame’ craft services: ‘People would be fighting over tomato slices.’

January 1994: Because the pafps grant works on a first-come, first-served basis, it takes four months for Sweeney to get his processing done. He videotapes his rushes on vhs, and he and co-editor Ross Weber begin work on a basic video edit at ppi.

February 1994: With his leftover stock, Sweeney shoots some new material for the film to patch up flaws, ‘of which there were a decent number.’ He survives by doing framing work and the odd industry job.

June 1994: The editing is completed on vhs and then conformed to film. Sweeney calls a number of composers to talk about doing the score. ‘Don MacDonald was a tennis player, and I play tennis, and figured we could play while we talked about the film, so he got the job.’ The music is performed by a small jazz quartet. ‘I actually hate music in movies.’

January 1995: Sweeney receives a Canada Council Media Arts Post Production B Grant of $38,000.

March 1995: The lab loses eight vital minutes of negatives. After weeks of fruitless searching at home and hounding the lab, Sweeney is finally allowed to search the lab himself. He finds the negative tucked in a box with the lab’s fake Christmas tree.

He’s left disheartened by how much ‘the little film gets dicked around in this industry.’ Sweeney completes an arduous four-month sound cut, and they mix at Pinewood.

Late August 1995: Sweeney’s print of Live Bait is struck. The film, ‘a humorous, hip blend of The Graduate and Harold and Maude,’ is invited to the Toronto, Vancouver and Mill Valley film festivals. Telefilm antes up $15,000 ‘to help pay off debts.’ There’s no distributor yet, but Sweeney plans to pay back his father in full eventually.

In the meantime, Sweeney has plans to get started on another small feature called Dirty, starring Chula and Scholte. This time, everyone will at least get a flat fee of $100, and his dad is off the hook.

Total cost: approximately $85,000.

September 1995: Live Bait screens as part of Perspective Canada at the Toronto International Film Festival.